at long last we are reviewing the indian motorcycle starting with this
indian springfield dark horse in white we had promised many months ago that we'd
be reviewing the indians and that was the case we'd arranged it directly with indian
but they've kind of gone cold on us so we've come to northampton and we've been lent this bike very
kindly by motorcycle world of northampton they sell indians and lots of other makes
and motorcycles motor goods suzuki's yamaha um so nice dealership they just moved moved premises
so we're starting out with this beautiful looking indian springfield dark horse
now as usual it's blowing a gale force wind as you can probably see on my hair um but we've got a new
mic now i've got a lapel mic hidden under my shirt so hopefully you can't hear the wind and you'll
better hear me speaking more clearly than usual so at last our audio is going to match our visual
now this indian has the thunderstroke 116 cubic inch engine which is massive it's a v to an engine
that's 1890 cc to be precise it produces 168 newton meters of torque at only 2800 rpm which
is very low in the rev range compare that to the harley 114 engines they produce their peak torque
at 3000 rpm so that's coming in at less than that so it's a very good bike to give you instant low
um grunt at low revs which is fabulous for cruising and riding around effortlessly but
you feel that as a tidal wave of torque it's like being pushed along as i've said many
times by a rhinoceros as i stand here it's just starting to rain but never mind we'll carry on
now the standard springfield has a front wheel of 17 inches this has a front wheel of 19 inches
they both have a 16 inch rear wheel so there's a few subtle differences between the two models
um the standard one is a bit more cowboy-ish if you like this is more sort of uh badass normal i'd
say blacked out but it's whited out the wheelbase is 1701 millimeters so it's a very long bike
and i love long bikes long wheelbase bikes are really good especially if you're tall
it gives you stability and it's road presence is absolutely fantastic
the standard springfield has a seat height of 660 millimeters the dark horse uh is 650
mils a little bit lower so if i sit on it you can see how high the seat is my
knees are firmly bent um but you might be thinking that will be good for short people yes in terms of
getting your feet on the ground but no in terms of length because this is actually a very long bike
and it's very roomy indeed it's it's almost a reach to sort of get the handlebars especially
when you're turning at slower speeds so i'd say this is a bike definitely suited to taller people
so five foot eleven plus i'm six foot three it's absolutely perfect you could be six foot six on
this bike and you'd be fine the handlebars are cranked back quite a long way so if you put them
further forwards um this would suit tall people so that's a really good thing i don't often say that
now one of the things that's been troubling me if you like about this bike is the dimensions
the rake and the trail in particular the rake is that's the steepness of the headstock 25
degrees which is really steep and the trail is 133 millimeters so that makes the forks quite
steep now i was thinking before i got on this bike that it's going to be twitchy i definitely
could imagine it would be good at turning because of the of the sleekness of the the rake
but riding it straight away it's a very stable motorcycle um it's very good in the bins as well
and the handling is superb so i'm trying to make it sort of be twitchy but it's not twitchy so
actually it's a very nice handling motorcycle it's stable at speed it's stable on the motorway yet
in the windy stuff in the country it's perfectly all right so this is really a very nicely designed
motorcycle
now it's a beautiful design i must say it's a very pretty looking motorcycle very simplistic but very
artistic um so i love the lines of this bike um you've got a nice little sort of indian motif on
the front here metal mud guards double disc brakes at the front the the stopping power is very good
the engine is very pretty very beautiful it's not very wide so you've got
a nice sort of seating position you've got double pipes on this and it's got a nice throaty sound
tick over it uh has got a nice sort of little rumble to it um so it takes all the boxes and
uh the seat's very comfortable you've got a bit of a backrest to the seat which i don't normally like
because it's so long it's not getting in the way of my seating position so that's good so when
you're accelerating you're not going to shoot off the back and it's actually very grippy you've got
the passenger seat here with your pegs as well so that's very comfortable and these panniers
which actually have a little button here you can lock them from there they're very spacious so i
can get my camera bag in i can get my tripod lots of gear so if you're going away for a weekend or a
week away you've got tons of storage space which is very very good now so i'm not struggling with
the audio but now we're struggling with the weather there's a massive dark cloud coming
it's going to pull down with rain in a minute but we'll just see what we can do the weight of this
model is 355 kilograms that's wet with fuel and oil the standard model is 376 a bit heavier than
this this has the tyre pressure monitoring and cruise control as standard which is fabulous the
mirrors are very good i could see two thirds of the road behind me not all of it if they were a
tad higher that would be much better but they're pretty good now suspension wise um you do feel
the bumps a little bit with this perhaps more so than the harley that i'm used to as my daily ride
i'm taking taking two as i'm burping now the suspension on this is firm so you do feel the
bumps a bit um but it's by no means um a problem now as you sit on the bike you've got a little on
switch here you've got a fuel gauge there's two fuel gauges there's one sort of round analog one
and there's one inside the digital digital display you've got an analog speedometer which is great
when you're riding to look down at the digital bit you've got to look down quite a long way so
you can't see the road ahead so that's difficult um it's got three modes uh standard mode sport and
a sort of done-down one but the mode button is on the handlebars here on the right which is a bit
tricky um it'll be better on the left and it's a little tricky to to scroll through and select them
on the move so that could be simplified now i've moved under the trees here because it's
pouring a rain now this bike is priced at 22 399 pounds and the standard springfield
is 22 499 which puts its smack bang in the same ballpark as the harley-davidson road kings and the
street glide special we just reviewed the street glide special so make sure you see that review
um so the question then becomes will which one would you go for out of the two or three
i could honestly say that this is the better bike it's much more roomy than the harley-davidson's
so for a tall guy this is no question the better bike to go for it handles beautifully it corners
very nicely it's stable at speed it's got a lovely character so the engine sounds really amazing
and at low revs it pops and bubbles and it sounds cool and you've got double disc brakes it's very
stylish but minimalistic the panniers are very spacious you can get tons of things in there
if you change the exhaust pipes it's going to roar like a lion
it's a fabulous bike and obviously there's lots of accessories for these things you can
change the handlebars and change all sorts of things i'm extremely pleasantly um surprised
as i said before i thought with the rake in the trail dimensions it's going to be twitchy
and it's not it's very stable and it rides very nicely so um full marks for indian
now from a weather proofing point of view this is very good you've got big mud guards or fenders at
the front that keep the water off the bike and off of you uh at the back here as well it's all
covered and you've got panels here which keep the water off of you from the back wheel so riding on
wet roads isn't going to be a problem you're not going to get soaked apart from obviously
if it rains on top of you but it's very good indeed from that point of view the engine is
very smooth there's no vibration and the gears go through nicely there's no clunkiness up or down so
that's very good i like the width of the mini ape bars it's very good i don't like narrow bars so
it looks more menacing and you get a better feel of the control with wider bars as well
what does it sound like we need to know let's find out
the stand on this is very good uh the stands on the harley tourers
are awful this goes down stays where you put it and the bike doesn't rock backwards or forwards so
it's disconcerting with the harleys when they move when you get off the bike because the stand
doesn't stay in the same place so our verdict on the indian springfield dark horse is that it is
a beautiful motorcycle beautiful to ride full of character and absolutely up there with the best of
them so i would certainly recommend the test ride if you're interested in one of these and go to
your local dealer or if possible go to motorcycle world in northampton who are very helpful they've
just moved to a new premises fabulous dealership so i'd highly recommend them don't forget to
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